


The Smallest Scars

by Hooda



Series: You Have Never Been Nothing, Not To Me [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Adulthood, Childhood Memories, Hurt/Comfort, Knives, Musical Instruments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 11:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19198033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hooda/pseuds/Hooda
Summary: Diego passes the wet rag over her fingertips one last time and she hisses. The skin was torn at the tips and the skin peels from where she tore it against the hair from the bow. He briefly wonders if these will be her first scars.They would be tiny, almost as unnoticeable as Vanya herself._____Diego and Vanya share a memory / season 1





	The Smallest Scars

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in the fandom, so don't burn me just yet for writing Vanya / Diego. I like the idea of them far more than Allison / Luther - sue me!

They are fourteen and sitting on the floor of the bathroom when they kiss for the first time.

They ignore the cold of the tiles as Diego clasps her hands in his own. His fingers gently clean away the blood from her palm. Whether she shivered from the cold or from crying, Diego was not sure. Her eyes were clouded and staring at the tub behind him.

He passes the wet rag over her fingertips one last time and she hisses. The skin was torn at the tips and the skin peels from where she tore it against the hair from the bow. He briefly wonders if these will be her first scars.

They would be tiny, almost as unnoticeable as Vanya herself.

She hisses when he lays the fingers on his leg and spreads anti-bacterial cream over the puckering skin. He hears her sniffle and chuckle when he poorly attempts to place band-aids over her fingertips.

“Mom will be mad at us for not coming to her for help,” Vanya says as he frustratingly throws the band-aids aside.

Under normal circumstances, Diego was more than happy seeking out Mom for help. But when he walked in on Vanya crying and bloody in the middle of the night, the thought of finding Mom for help was far from his mind.

They were not allowed to be awake so late. If they sought out Grace at this hour, there would surely be repercussions.

“Yeah,” Diego sighs, “she’s going to be pissed.”

Vanya giggled. It was small and quiet, but a welcome brightness against the dark pools under her eyes and the bloody situation between them. Her coffee brown hair falls over a shoulder and Diego cannot help admiring it. He always thought her hair was straighter than the edges of his knives.

Vanya giggles and he kisses her on the edge of her mouth.

She tastes like salt and vanilla chapstick.

The kiss was more of peck. It lasted a total of two seconds and Diego pulled away before she could hit him. His mind was racing, his eyes wide.

But Vanya simply stares at him, his lips, back up at his eyes.

“Why did you do that?”

Her words are quiet, almost a whisper. Diego’s heartbeat pounds in his ears.

“I-I-I d-don’t know. I d-don’t like seeing you h-hurt.”

The edges of her lips curl upwards and she looks away, cheeks blossoming with color. Her good hand grasps one of his own. He wonders if she can feel his erratic pulse.

_______

They are thirty and he is crashing into her life like a fucking boulder hits a motionless lake.

Vanya cannot remember the last time she has taken her meds (probably yesterday morning) and the itch in the back of her mind will not let his words go.

She pushes through the gym doors late one night and worms her way around people completing late night sessions.

Luther’s sticky note with the gym address burned in her pocket.

She storms down the hall leading to the boiler room - his room - and feels the air thicken around her. A dull fluorescent light flickers over her head when she stops at his door.

Diego answers her banging with groggy eyes and a roll of his eyes.

“Fucking Luther,” he groaned as he opened the door for her to pass. “What’d he do? Publish my address on every goddamn billboard in town?”

Vanya notices the glint of a knife in his hand.

“You’re a prick,” she hisses at him as she slams the door behind her. “You know that?”

Diego’s eyebrows pinch together and he leans closer to her, almost as if he did not hear.

“You’re here to yell at me now?”

“I am just as much a member of this family as you are.” Her heart was racing and her hair was still somewhat damp from the rain that followed her here. “Don’t ever fucking tell me to leave the goddamn house again!”

Diego chuckled, humorlessly, and stepped back to look down at her. She had so much spite for someone who had left the Academy, the house, him - first.

“And don’t ever call me a liability again.”

“But you are one.”

He can still remember the sound of Hazel’s hand hitting her temple, the sound of her body hitting the coffee table and watching her tighten into a curled ball of anticipated fear.

Vanya shoves his shoulders, harder than he expected.

“You know I hate the word. You know better than anyone in that miserable house.”

Her eyes burned holes into him.

“I needed to provoke you to leave the house,” he hissed back, his finger jabbing into her collarbone. “I needed you gone so we could think and work without your b-blood on our hands, on our conscious.”

Something begins to crumble behind Vanya’s eyes. The corner of her lip twitches.

“Guilt? You’re worried about feeling guilty I would be caught in the crossfire?”

Diego shakes his head, his throat tight.

“I don’t need the guilt of knowing I could do more to protect you. Of knowing I didn’t protect our home and family.” He sees the bruising on her temple from the hit she took. “I needed you f-farther away because it was the only way you would be safer from those two psychos.”

Vanya was shaking. Her arms trembled with or anger or the cold, he did not know. She took a dangerous step closer to him.

“I didn’t think you cared about my safety - not after what I did to the family.”

She never thought he would talk to her again, not after she had stripped the family of its protective bubble and lay them bare for the world to dissect. But now she looks up at him, into his muddy brown eyes, and she realizes she was wrong. No matter how much he wanted to hate her, he would always protect the pack. He would be her family.

“I’ve always cared.”

Vanya opens her mouth to ask why, to ask why he ever even gave a shit, but she is stopped short by him surging forward to push her against the door. His lips are harsh and chapped when they slide against her own.  
Diego can barely think, but he pulls away just enough for their mouths to touch and he breathes the words against her lips.

“I hate the idea of you being hurt.”

The fingertips grasping the back of his neck tingle.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very much appreciated! Thanks for reading!


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